So says well-intentioned John in Christopher Durang’s Baby with the Bathwater when asked to sing a lullaby to his child (girl? boy? They never checked.) The parents in Durang’s world are lost: self-absorbed, inconsistent, and a bit like children themselves. Frankly, they have no idea how to raise a child, which raises the question: so who does?

Set in the Material World of 1980s middle class America, where “knowledge” and “happiness” are bottled, sealed, stamped, sold in paperback, and available at your local pharmacy, the focus is on the absurd life of Daisy, the luckless child of two “parent-children”. As we travel through stages of Daisy’s ridiculous life, questions begin to arise. What does it mean to be a good parent? How much can one grow and change, and how much is ingrained?